Human nature, red in tooth and claw

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About Tess

Liverpool lass Tess is now settled in the far north of England where she roams the fells with a brolly, dreaming up new stories and startling the occasional sheep. You can follow her ramblings at her website, www.tessmakovesky.com.

Dull but necessary

First retrieve your sheep

I’m probably in a silly mood today, because this snippet of local news made me giggle: Cumbrian police are holding a ‘reclaim your sheep’ day for local farmers.

Of course, in rural areas sheep rustling is a deadly serious business and farmers and owners of smallholdings can lose hundreds or thousands of pounds in profit to thieves. The fact that the police have uncovered a rustling ‘ring’, arrested six people, and extricated over a hundred ewes, is probably a life-saver for some of the victims.

Even so, I had visions of sheep milling around the place whilst all sorts of people turned up on the doorstep to say ‘yup, that one’s mine, that’s our Bessie’. I’m hoping it’s all a little more scientific than that, with farmers providing records that match ear-tags or fleece markings or whatever. Otherwise it could be total sheepy mayhem.

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2 thoughts on “First retrieve your sheep”

Tess – Thanks for sharing this fun story. Of course it is indeed very serious to a small farmer. So I’m glad the ring was busted and the sheep will be returned to their owners. But it does create some interesting mental pictures doesn’t it?